


Plea bargain

by cuneifire (orphan_account)



Series: Author's Favourites [10]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Letters, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 00:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18063134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cuneifire
Summary: You have to be careful with these things.(Or: Thomas watches Alexander Hamilton until he cracks. Turns out they have a thing or two in common.)





	Plea bargain

You have to be careful with these type of things. And if there’s one thing Jefferson can point to Alexander Hamilton being, it is nothing short of indelicate.

For someone not looking for the signs, perhaps, it might be a bit more difficult. But Hamilton is Jefferson’s enemy, it is his foreswore duty to watch every move and word for mistakes, so Jefferson sees it. For that reason and that reason only. 

It’s always dead in the heat of August, when the summer’s breathing its final breath. Hamilton is less persuasive, less adamant. He often looks like he wants to collapse, as though he's had enough. Jefferson knows that type of mourning, the ache in one’s chest that doesn’t leave, no matter of time nor impracticality. He knows it well.

He and James are conferring with Burr one evening, and somehow he’s had enough alcohol that he fumbles to ask, “Did he have a woman before his wife?” And if he’s ever questioned why he’ll say it was for dirt, to take him down as a scandalous adulterer.

Burr pauses. “Not that I recall of, no. Hamilton arrived and joined the war and there weren’t many women there.”

“So a sodomite, then.” He says in jest, lips curving up, and doesn’t meet James’ eye.

Burr doesn’t take it as a joke, but then again Jefferson is pretty sure Burr doesn’t comprehend the meaning of joking in the first place.

“He was close with…” he trails off, looking past Jefferson to the window, voice more to himself than anything “And there _were_ rumours, but they were never pursued. Henry Laurens was one powerful bastard…”

Thomas cocks an eyebrow. “Henry Laurens?”

“His son, yes. Alexander and his son were friends, although…” Burr shakes his head. “We shouldn’t follow it, lest we come up empty. And John Laurens is long dead now, evidence would be near impossible to find.”

Thomas hears himself say something about rumours not needing much evidential backing to get afoot, but his head is spinning. “Tell, was it August?”

“August what?”

“This, _Laurens’_ death.”

Burr thinks over that one. “I think, yes. Why do you ask?”

Thomas just grins absentmindedly. “No reason,” he says, and feels his gaze slip over to the pen in James’ hand, the way his fingers curl over the paper.

No reason at all.

.

He thinks it’s obvious then, but he doesn’t do anything with it. Men like Hamilton, you give them enough time and they tear themselves apart on their own.

Hamilton does just that, leaving the conference room indignant and fast, so fast there’s a paper that follows out behind him on a stray gust of air as he hurriedly misbuttons his coat and exits. It’s yellowed and tied tightly in string and nearly cracks when Thomas picks it up.

He puts it in his pocket and resolves to read it at home.

 _My Dearest Laurens,_ the letter starts with, and that’s all Thomas really needs. Because what man keeps a paper from a correspondent years dead, in his coat pocket no less? But he reads on, if only for further proof.

He finds it.

.

Hamilton looks more frantic in court that day, and a few days afterward where Jefferson keeps a hold of the letter, only partially to see Hamilton stress. His rival keeps glancing around like someone is about to jump him, the set of his jaw more determined than usual, his arguments less concise and more wandering, the work of someone who is writing a paper with only half a mind to his pen.

Jefferson does not return the letter so much as leave it in a convenient location where Hamilton will find it, figuring if someone else comes across it is will be Hamilton’s fault for carrying it around like that. It’s awfully indelicate, but Jefferson supposes he should expect no less from him.

A few days after that and it’s September and Jefferson no longer has the letter and Hamilton’s words are as sharp as ever.

.

He wonders how no one else could _see_ it. To Jefferson, it seemed you’d have to be blind. If Hamilton’s rival, a man who he only sees across the court and cabinet, can guess at his former misdeeds, then how on Earth could his _wife_ not put two and two together?

He supposes people see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear.

His letter is almost finished, but still he dips his quill in the ink yet again.

 _Post-Script,_ he writes. _James, would you like to come up to Monticello for a while?_

.

He never accuses Hamilton of anything. Never brings it up, never so much as hints at it. Hamilton undoes himself like Jefferson guessed anyways, although not in that particular manner.

But still it nags at him, sometimes. One would have to think Hamilton a complete imbecile, how heedless he’d been to the possibility of someone finding his crime. Sodomy is punishable by death.

Perhaps it’s just the man’s personality, Jefferson will resolve sometimes, but he can never quite put his finger on why that doesn’t sound right. Hamilton managed to keep Maria Reynolds a secret for some time, it’s not like he went around declaring it. There’s something off to this, but for all his books and debates he can never quite figure it out.

He looks at James across the sunlit table, smiling slightly as he talks something close to exuberantly about the books laid askew- Goethe, Kant, and Voltaire- casually turning each about in regards to their merit. Thomas ardently argues for Voltaire- James seems to go back and forth on the Frenchman and Kant. James reaches for his drink, pausing with thought as he returns Thomas’ point on the mind-body split, before curling his fingers in Thomas’ hand. Thomas can feel a hint of a grin coming on, and it only gets wider when James returns it.

Here, it’s okay to do this, when the doors are locked and there’s no one of importance for miles.

Admiring the way the light catches in James’ eyes as he smiles, Jefferson thinks he might understand Hamilton, one sole and singular time in his life. Laurens is dead, so it’s only Hamilton’s life on the line should he be found out.

When there is someone else who would fall with you, you take no chances. 

**Author's Note:**

> Notes
> 
> -John Laurens died on August 27th, 1782. 
> 
> -Candide was published in 1759, Goethe’s first novel in 1774. Kant’s The Crime of Pure Reason dates to 1781.


End file.
